


folie à deux

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, In a sense, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pseudoscience, Universe Travel, true love transcending realities.......
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: Newt wakes up in a reality where the kaiju have never existed and where he never met Hermann Gottlieb. It's disorienting, to say the least.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feriowind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feriowind/gifts).



> written as an art-fic-swap for the wonderful feriowind! they requested fic based off [their comic here](http://feriowind.tumblr.com/post/101245731255/okay-this-is-based-on-the-ending-of-this-au-that) and i'm a HUGE sucker for universe swap fics
> 
> multi-chaptered, so i can space out the writing in chunks and make it easier to post while i do schoolwork! lol

Newt’s not sure, but he thinks he may have saved the world.

He woke up feeling like that today, anyway. Like there’s something he’s forgotten, lurking just in the back of his head. A fundamental truth. Newt Geiszler plays the guitar. Newt Geiszler teaches biology at MIT. Newt Geiszler is a vegetarian. Newt Geiszler saved the world.

From what?

“Hey,” someone says. He’s curly-haired and tall and has large, rounded glasses perched on the edge of his nose, and he’s leaning in the doorway of the bedroom. Whose bedroom? It’s not Newt’s—this room is nice and big with windows and green paint. Newt’s is small and cement-block-walled, standard military-issued, and he has a few movie posters tacked up and a little shelf he stores action figures and some books to make it less depressing, except that’s not what’s Newt’s bedroom looks like. _This_ is Newt’s bedroom, he knows with a deep certainty that he can't really explain. Besides. Newt doesn’t work for the military (like he’d _ever_ ).

So who's the guy?

The bedside table next to Newt has things Newt thinks may be his own: a spare pair of his chunky glasses, a couple of leather bracelets (Newt’s hair is damp, so he imagines he took them off for a shower the previous night), his cell phone (a model he doesn’t recognize, but the case is well-worn and features Godzilla tearing up a nondescript city). The opposite bedside table has things Newt cannot imagine owning under any circumstances, including a very ugly off-white scarf. “You want coffee?” the guy says.

Newt thinks the guy plays the drums, not the guitar. He’s not a biologist. He’s not a physicist, either, but Newt’s not sure why that matters. He thinks they might be dating, or at the very least, Newt brought him home last night. “Uh,” Newt says. “Sure.” What did Newt save the world from?

The curly-haired guy is lingering, frown creeping across his face. “What’s wrong?”

Newt rolls over on his side to face him, but when he props himself up on his elbow he’s momentarily distracted by his arms. His bare arms. Newt’s sure he had tattoos—great, excellent, colorful tattoos that winded down his forearms and up his biceps and down his back, of scales and waves and monsters. Newt’s arms are bare and freckled, save for an old scar on the back of his hand. He brushes his fingers down one arm, over the ghost of a snarling, fanged mouth, following non-existent lines. “Did I have tattoos?”

“Uh. No?”

Newt had tattoos, he’s sure, but they’re gone, and he saved the world, but he’s not sure from what, and there’s a strange man in his bedroom (a bedroom he doesn’t recognize) that Newt thinks he might be dating. Newt's a scientist, above all else, so he knows the most important thing is to keep a cool head and approach this in a rational manner. Either the world's gone crazy or he has. He plays along. “I had the _weirdest_ dream,” Newt says.

 

The mystery guy makes Newt coffee. He pours himself a glass of orange juice, with a vague reference to—evidently—having recently cut caffeine out of his life. He goes on about some new project he’s doing at work and how he has to wash a shirt. He asks Newt how he slept at least twice. He’s very...nice. Normal. Quiet. Boring.

Newt can’t imagine what he sees in him.

“You’re acting weird,” the guy says, three minutes into a story about some woman he saw on the T yesterday.

“Sorry,” Newt says, faintly, and not really meaning it. He stirs his coffee.

“What was your dream about?” the guy says, finally deciding to humor him. Newt should really find out his name.

“I helped save the world,” Newt says. The guy laughs. Newt stirs his coffee some more, staring at the little bubbles of air that dot the surface. “I was still a scientist,” Newt continues, struggling to remember the details (it’s not hazy like a dream should be, not impossible to grasp at the details, but most of them are missing) “but I studied these—giant aliens that came from the ocean."

“And you saved the world from them?”

“Maybe.” He remembers running. He remembers being scared of something. He remembers he had a lab partner. “Hermann,” he says aloud, trying it out. With two n’s. The n’s are necessary, somehow, as necessary as the name—for some reason—is to Newt. Hermann. “Is your name Hermann?”

The guy laughs, and then realizes Newt’s serious. “No?” he says, smile fading. “It’s Richard.”

“Richard,” Newt says. He hums in thought, and taps at the tabletop. “Do I know someone named Hermann?”

“How should I know?” Richard says. “I just met you last night.”

Newt squints at him. “We just met last night and you’re in my kitchen?”

“Well, you know,” Richard says, “ _I_ wanted to call an Uber or something last night, but you—”

It’s oddly liberating to know he’s not dating the man, and he was probably nothing more than a one-night stand (even if he is drinking all of Newt’s orange juice). Newt’s probably not going to see him after today, so he, frankly, doesn't give too much of a shit about making a normal impression. “Richard,” Newt says. “Richard. Does anyone ever call you Dick?”

“Uh, please don't call me—”

“I’m like, eighty percent sure I hopped realities or something, dude,” Newt says. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, or where the fuck I am.” He points at his shirt. “I’ve never seen this before in my life, but I know it’s mine.” He picks up his _X-Files_ mug. “I’ve never seen _this_ before, but I know it’s mine. 

“You’re probably just hungover,” Richard says, looking like he definitely thinks Newt’s cracked, but Newt shakes his head.

“Okay. Listen. Humor me. In my dream—” But Newt stops. He doesn’t remember anything other than the details he already told Richard. He huffs and kicks at the ground. “Man, this _sucks_.”

“Yeah. Uh. I have to get to work, so—” Richard stands up and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair and keys from the counter. He's in a clear hurry. “You do too, probably.”

“Oh, shit,” Newt says, blinking at the window and realizing how late in the morning it is. If he’s still a professor, he should _definitely_ be on campus by now. “Yeah, smart. Good talk, Dick.” He jumps to his feet, and then squints at him again. “Uh. Are we going out again?”

The look on Richard's face is the only answer Newt needs. “No offense, Newt,” Richard says, already half out the door, “but you’re kind of a weird guy.”

“That's fair,” Newt says. “Bye.”

 

Newt gets dressed quickly and checks his phone while he rides the T to MIT, which is when he learns two things: that he already missed at least one class (apparently he was supposed to be handing out the midterm assignment this morning, if the multiple panicked emails in his inbox mean anything, which is a big _yikes_ ), and that it’s 2025. Newt’s last solid, definable memory—not involving giant space lizards from the ocean that he's still not sure exist—is from 2013, which means he has about twelve or so years unaccounted for. He takes it surprisingly well, all things considered. His office is in the same spot it’s always been, at least, and when he gets there he finds nearly a dozen frantic-looking students lined up outside it. They all turn and stare at him in unison.

“Sorry!” Newt exclaims. “Sorry, sorry, I, uh, I was sick, I—” He fumbles with the key to his door, trying out three different ones until it clicks open. “Midterms. Right. Let’s find those.”

It takes him another fifteen minutes to dig the midterms out of his desk, and once he’s informed the stack he tries to hand over are for the wrong class, he takes twenty more minutes to find the right ones. By the time he runs through the instructions that he ( _thankfully_ ) listed on his own copy, a little alarm on his phone is telling him he’s about to be late to teach his afternoon Biochemistry lecture. He parts with about fifty more apologies and then fucking _books_ it to what he hopes is the right classroom.

Newt’s hasn’t had to teach a class in nearly a decade, too busy at the jaeger academy and then working alongside Hermann in the lab and cutting open weird sea monsters, except for the fact that Newt’s spent the last decade teaching and he never went to an academy or worked alongside someone named Hermann, apparently. (Newt thinks he and Hermann saved the world together.) But the  _point_. The point is that he’s rusty. He bumbles his way through the first twenty minutes with shit he remembers off the top of his head from grad school, only for his students to inform him they covered this their freshman year and this is meant to be an advanced course on genetics.

Newt lets them out early.

He cancels the rest of his classes. At least it’s a Friday.

 

That night, Newt settles down in bed and starts making a List of everything he remembers.

Newt remembers monsters. He remembers having tattoos. He remembers giant robots, like something from an anime. He remembers cowering underground somewhere. He remembers Hong Kong (Newt’s never been to Hong Kong) and he remembers a tight, cramped lab and yellow tape and he remembers a grumpy-looking bastard with a cane shouting at him, and he remembers a grumpy-looking bastard with a cane holding his hand and smiling at him like he’s the most precious thing in the universe, and he remembers writing letters and saving the world, and he remembers being _loved_.

He doesn’t write the last one down (not conducive to the topic at hand), but he thinks the grumpy bastard might have something to do with that one, too, and he thinks that might be Hermann.

Newt makes a separate list for Hermann. What does he remember about Hermann? Hermann has a cane. Hermann is grumpy. Hermann’s the cause of the yellow tape. Hermann has an ugly haircut. Hermann might be a physicist.

 

Newt Googles “Hermann physics.” Nothing comes up, not that Newt really expected it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt learns more about this-him. He also buys a fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm not ENTIRELY sure how i feel about this chapter but i was getting tired of looking at it LMAO

Newt tries his hardest to fake his way through the next handful of weeks. It’s mostly so he can settle into some sort of rhythm to keep from _really_ cracking before he can get started on his main query, i.e. _what the fuck happened to him_. He doesn’t answer any texts—not from Richard, who apparently forgot his ugly scarf in Newt’s bedroom, nor from one of his (presumed) colleagues, who wants to know if Newt will be attending the department dinner, and _especially_ not from his dad, who’s just checking up on how he’s doing (Newt doesn't know how to _remotely_ approach that one). He relearns as much as he can from old textbooks and thesis papers buried in his closet so that he can believably teach a class as the long-tenured professor he’s supposed to be. He watches some television. He works out how to use his phone (in the Other World, as he’s taken to calling it, Newt doesn’t think they _ever_ got this high-tech). He goes to bed every night staring at his blank and freckled arms, and he dreams of Hong Kong and monsters and a tiny lab and being loved, and when he wakes up he copies it all down into his little notebook.

Newt remembers a lot of things about the Other World. He remembers how it felt to be bone-tired and delirious, hacking away at fluorescent intestine and rough-scaled skin until his eyes stung and he collapsed into bed. He remembers the metal walls of his lab, the chill of the refrigeration systems, the stench of ammonia and formaldehyde. He fills page after page with sketches of the monsters—the kaiju, he thinks they’re called—intricate detailing of their skeletons and organs, and all in a deep, deep blue. He knows their anatomy as well as any human’s. Better than any human’s.

He wishes he could remember more about Hermann. His last name, maybe, a concrete image of what he looks like. Something more to go on, beyond just how he makes Newt _feel_. (How does he make Newt feel? Frustrated. Angry. Confused. Loved. _I think I was in love with him_ , Newt writes one day, _and I think he was in love with me too._ )

 

Newt finds out more about his life here, too, beyond being a professor. It’s like getting to know an old friend you haven't talked to in a while, except the old friend is, you know, himself.

He’s apparently played guitar in a band since 2013 ( _his_ band, which Newt thinks broke up in the Other World) and they’re terrible but This Newt seems to have fun with it. Newt has _seven_ PhDs here, apparently, if the diplomas gathering dust in the bottom drawer of his desk mean anything, but none of them are in alien biology. One _is_ in poetry, however, which Newt really can’t account for, since he can’t remember ever giving a shit about poetry before. He doesn’t have many friends, which he thinks he should have expected, and all the numbers saved in his cell phone are family members or colleagues, or the off one-night stand (Richard, for example, and someone saved as _Ate All My Pop-Tarts, Don’t Reply_ who texts and asks Newt if he wants to grab a drink sometime). Newt discovers too-late he has a beta fish in need of feeding in a tank in his front hallway (he flushes it guiltily, and unceremoniously, down the toilet) but he _does_ find his miniature herb garden and tomato plant on the back windowsill in time to water them before they, too, die. He has a distressingly large amount of competitive cooking shows and _How It’s Made_ downloaded to his laptop. And he’s not totally tattooless: he has a tiny little dinosaur on his right shoulderblade, which looks distressingly like something he would’ve gotten while drunk off his ass.

Newt’s well-informed scientific opinion: This Newt is very, _very_ lonely. It does explain the extra PhD, though; Newt finds a heavily annotated and dog-eared collection of Dickinson half-under his bed that he doesn’t think anyone with a remotely fulfilling life would come close to owning.

( _We wrote each other letters_ , Newt writes in the notebook one evening. It’s nearly full, now—Newt will have to buy another one soon.)

 

Newt does end up buying a new notebook, and then on a whim, a new fish too. It’s a beta, like the last one, color and markings nearly the same too, and he tips it into the recently vacated tank in the front hallway when he gets home from the pet store. He watches it swim around for a bit and check out its new digs. This Newt really went all out with the little, and late, guy’s tank decorations, and when the fish peeks curiously inside a tiny TARDIS, Newt feels a pang of guilt for the untimely demise of the last one. (Sorry, This Newt.) “If I was really pathetic,” Newt tells the fish, and presses his finger against the side of the tank, “I would name you Hermann.”

The fish says nothing, on account of it being a fish, but Newt likes to think they have an understanding.

“Hermann Two, maybe,” Newt says. He sprinkles a bit of food at the top and watches the little maroon fish swim towards it. “Hopefully I’ll remember to feed you this time.”

 

Newt is pretty pathetic, so he moves Hermann Two out on a coffee table in the living room, where he’s been spending a good deal of time lately because the couch is nice as shit and This Newt’s paid for, like, fifty streaming services (even if it takes Newt a little while to figure out how to use the TV). He’s also taken to keeping a running commentary with the little fish as his recipient. It’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of again, even if the someone in question offers nothing but wide-eyed stares in return. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t just lost it,” he tells the fish, picking at the leftover crust of the pizza he ordered. He hasn’t remotely felt like cooking for himself since he got here so he's been racking up the takeout charges on This Newt's credit car. Universal displacement (or, presumed universal displacement, it’s still very much a working hypothesis) does that to a guy. Newt gives the fish some more tiny food flakes. “The memories seem so _real_ , you know?” he continues.

He’s filled up another notebook in the meantime. More sketches, some fragments of names that he can’t place faces to. He thinks the robots might’ve been called jaegers; he remembers much more about the kaiju, though.

Newt’s pretty sure it was something on his end that caused the Switch, since this world seems _way_ too normal for any shit like that to happen. Newt’s also pretty sure it was his own fault, too. He’s still not entirely sure what kind of person he is, but he strikes himself as a bit of an impulsive dumbass. He wishes he could find Hermann. “Hermann would know what to do,” he says to the fish. Hermann would have a _theory_ , he’s sure, or at the very least, he'd be better company.

It’s occurred to Newt that Hermann might not even exist in this universe. And even if he _did_ , it’s not as if that'd guarantee he’d be the same Hermann from Newt’s world. Still: Newt can’t shake away the absurd hope that if he finds Hermann, everything will be okay.

 

Newt teaches, and he dreams of more of the same, and he fills notebooks, and he monologues to his fish (he's already explicated his thoughts on the entirety of the _X-Files_ reboot to it, as well as all the new Oreo flavors that he doesn't think they had back in His World and This Newt's terrible taste in wall decor), and he teaches, and then finally,  _finally_ , one night Newtdreams of something _new_. An old memory resurfacing, maybe, he thinks. He’s in a lab (cold, with metal walls and the tape down the middle—his lab, then), on a couch, a thick parka wrapped around him and Hermann’s (Hermann!) shoulder pressed to his own. He’s holding a mug of something. He thinks he might be cold. Wet, maybe. He’s definitely shivering. “You’re an idiot,” Hermann tells him, sternly.

Newt pushes his dripping hair out of his eyes. Definitely wet. “I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

Hermann’s pale-faced, and his fingers tremble almost imperceptibly as he reaches out and picks up Newt’s hand for inspection. Newt realizes he has a bandage wrapped around it. He thinks he remembers this, distantly: he’d spilled some not-yet-neutralized kaiju blood on his hand (which was gloved, thank God), and Hermann panicked and shoved him into the emergency decontamination shower without even bothering to strip him down first. Newt had to do that afterwards, soaking wet and hand stinging, and then Hermann wrapped him up in the coat and bandaged him and pushed him onto the couch.

“You need to be _careful_ ,” Hermann tells him, peeking under the bandage to assess the damage. Newt recognizes the mottled tissue that will almost definitely become a scar: it’s the same scar he has in This world. (Or maybe it’s the Other world. He’s not sure where he is, now.)

Hermann’s brow is creased in worry and his touch is gentle and they wrote letters and Newt thinks they might’ve been in love, so Newt leans forward a fraction and kisses Hermann. Maybe. He thinks he kisses Hermann. He might just _want_ to kiss him very, very badly.

But Newt’s sure he kissed Hermann another time: Hermann held his hand and looked at him like he was the center of the universe (“I’ll go with you,” Hermann said) and they smiled at each other and Newt laughed and he pulled Hermann in close with an arm flung carelessly over his shoulders, and Hermann cupped his face as gentle as before and kissed him, and then Newt wakes up, dazed and disorientated and reaching for someone who isn’t there, and the only thought on his mind is _Gottlieb, Gottlieb_. Newt pushes his glasses on and fumbles for his laptop. It's two am, according to his alarm clock.

“Hermann Gottlieb” produces more promising Google results. By the time the laptop runs out of power and Newt has to dig around in the mess of laundry on his floor to find its charger, the sun's risen, and he’s read through two articles on black holes, a lengthy article on some new probe NASA is working on, and a small blurb on Oxford University’s website with an even smaller picture attached. And, most importantly: he’s found an email address.

Newt painstakingly copies it out into the recipient line in a new email, then takes the laptop out to the living room to think it all over with Hermann Two. “How do I even _start_ this?” he says. “Dear Dr. Gottlieb, I think you’re my lab partner from an alternate reality and we also might’ve been banging, talk soon?” The fish stares at him. “Why am I asking you?” Newt says, but he backspaces everything.

Newt doesn’t end up sending an email, because—after a little more prowling—he finds another blurb on the Oxford website announcing that Dr. Gottlieb will be attending some academic conference in London two days from now. Luckily, Newt’s always preferred the direct (and wildly impulsive) approach; he just hopes This Newt wasn't saving up money for anything important. By noon, Newt's bought a one-way British Airways ticket for tomorrow afternoon, drafted identical emails to the dean of MIT and his departments' heads explaining that he’ll be going on an indefinite and immediate sabbatical on account of a quote-unquote family emergency, and texted Richard The One Night Stand with the location of his spare apartment key and instructions to feed Hermann Two for him while he’s gone if he ever wants to see his ugly off-white scarf again.

By evening, Newt’s packed and ready to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter at hermanngaylieb and tumblr at hermannsthumb as always!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First meeting round two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright next chap let's do this babey!! dialogue from one section (about 5-6 lines) pulled ALMOST directly from [the comic](http://feriowind.tumblr.com/post/101245731255/okay-this-is-based-on-the-ending-of-this-au-that)
> 
> hrugdus i didnt like this chapter TOO much but. hopefully u all will

It’s a dumb as shit move on Newt’s part. Probably the end of his career, to say nothing of the dubious fate of his herb garden and beta fish, and he didn’t bother booking a hotel room beforehand so he’s gonna have to drag his carry-on bag all around the conference. Newt doesn’t even really know what Dr. Hermann Gottlieb looks like, beyond vague images in dreams, which Newt don’t think count as quantifiable research. He doesn’t even really know _Dr. Gottlieb_. (They wrote letters, Newt's notebook says, they shared a lab, they saved the world, and Newt was fiercely and desperately in love with him. In that world. In this world, Dr. Gottlieb is a stranger.)

Newt downs two cups of coffee, which don’t exactly help calm his already stomach-churningly violent nerves, and wanders through crowds aimlessly, squinting at academics and occasionally adjusting his bag. Familiar things catch his eye: a tweed blazer with elbow patches, a cane, glasses on a chain, but none are in the right context (right blazer, blond hair; a woman walks with the cane; an old man uses the glasses). Newt’s just about to give up hope and send Gottlieb an email after all when he sees a flash of an unstylish haircut and a simple wooden cane and jerks around so fast he stumbles on his untied laces and almost falls flat on his ass.

Dr. Gottlieb is standing in a corner, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee and glancing around the room like he'd rather be anywhere but, and Newt is struck with vertigo so strong he thinks—for a moment—he may throw up. It’s Hermann, every last inch of him, grumpy and awkward and slouching and the most beautiful fucking thing Newt has seen in his entire life. He's pushing people aside to get to Gottlieb before he even realizes what he's doing, strange, hot tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Relief, he thinks, or happiness. “Dr. Gottlieb,” he calls, wiping at them furiously, but Gottlieb taps his fingers on his cup and doesn’t hear him, “ _hey_ —” He skids to a halt in front of Gottlieb, and Gottlieb finally looks up.

Gottlieb goes pale. He drops the coffee; it splashes on both his neat little Oxfords and Newt’s boots, but Gottlieb seems to give as little of a shit as Newt does. Less than him, maybe.

“ _Newton_?” he says, and Newt thinks—for a fleeting, shining moment, that Hermann recognizes him too—and then, after opening and closing his mouth a few times, Gottlieb corrects himself, speaking fast and strained, “I mean—Dr. Geiszler. Your work. I—I recognized you. I’m a fan of your work,” and Newt’s heart sinks to his stomach. Of course. Newt’s work. He knows Newt from his work. Not even the _right_ Newt’s work: Newt wrote papers on kaiju skeletons and blood toxicity and the application of Breach physics (supplemental research courtesy of penpal-slash-research partner Dr. Gottlieb). He never wrote papers on giant squids or poetry or half the shit this Newt's published. Gottlieb holds out a trembling hand, and Newt takes it, shakes it half-heartedly.

“I am too,” Newt says, but the elation he’d felt only a few seconds prior is gone. He forces a smile. “Of your work, I mean. That probe—”

“Thank you,” Gottlieb says quickly, and Newt lets his hand fall. Gottlieb looks at the ground, finally seeming to realize the current state of his coffee. “Oh,” he says, blinking at the stain spreading across his shoes and prodding the split cup with the end of his cane, “I’m terribly sorry about that. I was—excited.”

“You’re fine. You’re good,” Newt babbles, and gives a little thumbs up. “Uh. Anyway. That’s it. I won’t hold you up. Just—keep up the good work, Doc.” He pats Hermann’s arm. “Cool. I’ll—” He turns to leave, maybe to book a flight back to America, maybe to find the nearest park bench and mope and wallow in his misery on while he kicks at rocks.

“Wait,” Gottlieb says suddenly, and Newt snaps back to his attention, hope ballooning in his chest. “Coffee,” Gottlieb says, and points at the pool of it on the ground.

“Yes,” Newt says, because it is, in fact, coffee.

“ _No_ ,” Gottlieb says, flushing. “Er. What I mean to say, is, would you like—?”

“Oh!” Newt nods frantically. “Yes! Yes, I would.”

 

They find a nice, albeit kitschy, little teashop not too far from the conference center with all sorts of overstuffed chairs and fraying, mismatched cushions shoved into every available corner. But it’s not too crowded, and Hermann requests a spot in the downstairs level in a little alcove away from everyone else where it’s even less so. They sit with a good foot between them on a little sofa, refusing to make eye contact. Hermann orders for the both of them.

“Two coffees,” he says, without bothering to ask Newt first. “Milk in one,” and then he inclines his head towards Newt, “sugar in the other.”

The waiter scribbles the order down onto a notepad, and Newt’s stomach twists again. “How’d you know?” he says, once their waiter’s left. “That I take my coffee…”

Hermann had been shrugging off his thick, and _familiar_ , winter parka, but he freezes. “Er,” he says, as it slips off the rest of the way on its own, “I don’t—know.”

“Lucky guess?” Newt says, heart thudding.

“Lucky guess,” Hermann echoes.

They get their coffee.

“My research,” Newt says, and takes a sip of his coffee. There’s a little too much sugar in it, and Hermann’s is far too light-colored for what Newt knows to be Hermann’s liking, because Newt remembers that, too. Hermann stares at him blankly. “You said you were a fan,” he continues. “Which of my stuff?”

“ _Ah_. I did say that,” Hermann says, and he doesn’t elaborate.

Newt drums his fingers on the armrest. “Your paper on black holes was really cool,” he tries again. “And NASA? Impressive as hell, dude.”

“Yes, well,” Hermann stammers. “Er. It was an honor to—to have the opportunity.”

“Yeah,” Newt says. “I’d bet.”

They pass a few more long moments in silence, and then Hermann sets his coffee down on the little table in front of them. “Dr. Geiszler,” he says, calm as hell, “why are we here?”

Newt forces a laugh. “You’re the one who wanted coffee, dude.”

Hermann sighs. “That isn’t what I meant.” Newt knows it’s not what Hermann meant. What he means is: why are he and Newt—two perfect strangers, by all accounts—sitting next to each other and having a conversation in the first place? Hermann hasn’t touched his coffee. “I feel as if—” he trails off, working his jaw furiously, and then fixes a resolute and unflinching stare on Newt. “I feel as if I know you, somehow. It’s all very strange. Like—a dream.”

“A dream,” Newt echoes faintly. Has Hermann dreamed of Newt, too? Their letters and their lab? Hermann’s staring at his knees. Newt has to know. “Hey, Hermann,” Newt says.

Hermann startles a little in his seat, nearly sloshing his coffee over the side of the cup. “Ah. Yes?”

“Hypothetically,” Newt says. “Uh. Hypothetically, if—if _giant monsters_ came and attacked us. From the bottom of the ocean. What would you do? You know. Hypothetically.” The expression on Hermann’s face is completely indiscernible, and Newt’s stomach sinks exactly as it had at the conference. Balloon of hope popping. He is wrong. He is alone. Damage control, he thinks wildly, and forces another nervous laugh. “Because,” he blurts out, “because I watched a movie the other night, you know, thought it seemed like a great ice breaker, since we’re both—”

“ _Newton_ ,” Hermann snaps, eyes wide; he’s clinging to Newt’s sleeve, Newt realizes, but he’s not sure for how long. Hermann watches Newt for a few moments, breathing hard, but he’s _excited_. “You mean,” he says, “you mean like kaiju?” Newt nods. Hermann’s face splits into a smile. “ _Well_ ,” he continues, “I suppose I’d have to program some giant robots to fight them off.”

“Operated by two pilots?” Newt’s eyes are wet he doesn’t care because it’s Hermann, _Hermann,_ it's  _his_ Hermann. 

“Yes,” Hermann says. He brushes his hand over Newt’s. “And I’d call them jaegers.”

Newt’s tears are flowing freely by the time he grips onto Hermann’s tweed jacket and yanks him in for—a kiss, a hug, _anything_ , just the knowledge that Hermann’s here, that he’s here with _Newt_ , that Newt isn’t alone. Hermann hugs him back, and for a moment Newt thinks he’s laughing before he realizes _Hermann’s_ crying, too. “Newton,” Hermann mumbles into the skin of his neck, “Newton, Newton, oh, hell, I’ve missed you.”

How could Newt ever forget Hermann? Hermann was his pen pal. Hermann was his lab partner. They studied kaiju together. They saved the world together. They were in love, too, Newt thinks, and Hermann is petting his hair and breathing his name over and over in a way that makes Newt thinks he might not be too far off in that assumption.

Hermann pulls away. He slides his hand up to cup Newt’s cheek, silent, just staring at him, and Newt has a million things he wants to say. He has a million things he wants to _ask_. He wants to know how much Hermann remembers about Their World, he wants to know how they _got_ here in the first place, he wants to know how they can leave, but all he manages to get out is a breathless “I named my fish after you.”

Hermann smiles at him, laughter lines crinkling, like Newt’s the funniest goddamn thing in the world. He’s rubbing his thumb across Newt’s cheekbone. “Your fish?”

“I talked to it and pretended it was you,” Newt says, and laughs again. “Is that weird?”

“My coping methods were hardly better,” Hermann admits. “I just pretended you were there. It made working through problems remarkably easier.” Newt’s oddly touched by the admission, that Hermann apparently conjured up some weird Force Ghost of him and rambled at it, and knowing Hermann, probably argued with it too. They’re _both_ weirdos. Hermann shakes his head slowly. “I was sure I’d gone _mad_ at first,” he continues. “One moment, the Breach is closed, and we’re—”

He blushes. Newt leers at him, knowing _exactly_ what they did after the Breach was closed (and it’s funny, really, that just being around Hermann is sparking old memories again: the fact that something called the Breach even existed, for one thing, that they closed it, for another) but it’s nice to have confirmation that he didn’t dream it up. “Making out?” Newt says. “Getting some hot Geiszler action?”

“And the next,” Hermann says, ears bright red, “I’m back at Oxford and at bloody _NASA’s_ beck and call and not a single person has ever heard of _kaiju_ or a biologist called Newton, and I didn’t know how to find you, and.” His voice is shaking. “Newton, I didn’t know...”

Newt’s never seen Hermann lose his cool like this before: usually Newt’s the one who gets riled up and talks and talk until he’s out of breath and light-headed, and Hermann has to be the one to calm him down and force him to breathe, which means Hermann must be _pretty_ fucked about this. He pulls Hermann back into another hug, and Hermann shuts up and hugs right back, trembling in Newt’s arms. “Hey,” Newt says, as soothing as he can manage, “hey, dude, listen, we’re together now, right? Whatever the fuck happened, we’re in this together.”

Hermann pulls away with a little sniffle. “Of course,” he says, and wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his blazer. “Yes. Together. I’m sorry. I’m just very glad to see you, is all.”

“Seconded,” Newt says, and then he nudges him in the chest with his elbow. “But, hey. NASA, though. That’s, like, your wet dream _._ I bet you flipped shit when you found out.”

“Mm,” Hermann hums, noncommittal. “I was otherwise preoccupied with more important matters. I Googled you, you know, once I remembered,” he says, suddenly changing the subject, “but your research here is nearly unrecognizable and I was certain it couldn’t be you. Twelve years in a _wildly_ different environment will do that, I suppose, but…”

“Yeah, I’m boring as shit here, you can just say it,” Newt says, and Hermann doesn’t deny it. “But come on, tell me the truth.”

Hermann looks at him quizzically.

“NASA, man,” Newt says. “Not even a fist in the air?” Newt would’ve liked to see that. “A gleeful shout? Oh, sorry,” he corrects, fake-apologetic, “if you’re _capable_ of being gleeful, anyway, don’t wanna presume—”

“Oh, alright,” Hermann says, “I was _gleeful_ ,” and cracks another wide smile, and Newt missed it so much he nearly kisses him on sight. Hermann snags a paper napkin from the table and finishes drying his eyes, then folds it delicately and places it on their coffee tray. “Come on,” he says, pushing himself up with his cane. “I’ve a hotel room not far from here. We can talk in private.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt's not too worried about finding a way back; Hermann disagrees. That, at least, is familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man sorry i took so long to get this up! i was deliberating how i wanted the plot to progress and marathoning a bunch of doctor who over my xmas break really inspired me to write more scifi LOL
> 
> next chap will not take as long! i swear

Newt was kinda hoping that _talk in private_ was code for _passionately make out_ or something along those lines (they have lost time to make up for, somehow both a few months and over a decade at the same time) so when Hermann shows him into his hotel room—modest, for a guy who’s apparently on fucking NASA’s payroll now—he quickly strips off his leather jacket and kicks off his muddy boots and makes himself at home on the queen-sized bed. It’s got an ugly as sin bedspread, like all hotel beds do, which is at least a trans-universal constant. “So,” Newt says, propping himself up on his elbow and hoping Hermann takes the bait. “What are we talking about, dude?”

Hermann doesn’t take the bait. He completely bypasses the bed (and a very disappointed Newt) and starts rummaging around in his room’s tiny closet instead, barren except for a nondescript suitcase and two tweed blazers on hangers. “I have notes,” Hermann says over his shoulder, tossing one of the blazers to the floor after rifling through its pockets. “I’ve been taking notes. Theorizing, and the like. If I could remember where I _put_ them—”

“You brought them with you?” Newt says, fully ready to tease him a little (just because he can, and Jesus, it feels good to talk to someone who's not a fish or an undergrad), and then he remembers that he’s got his own tiny memo collection currently resting in his carry-on as well.

Hermann scoffs. “Obviously,” he says. He digs through a bag. “Now stop lazing about and help me.”

Newt makes a face at his back, but obeys him and rolls off the bed. “Man, I forgot what a dick you are.” Patched-together-from-shitty-foggy-memories Hermann was a lot more romantic. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all.

“Mm,” Hermann says, clearly not paying attention to Newt, and then he exclaims “Ah!”

“Found it?”

Hermann tosses a notebook in his direction, not looking, and Newt catches it. He flips through the first few pages as Hermann rights the mess he made of his luggage and shuts the closet door. It’s...mostly nonsense. Just a huge long list of things. Random titles that sound like movies and TV shows, names, dates, stuff like that. Far less organized than Newt's own memos. Newt briefly wonders if the universe jump—or whatever the fuck it was—scrambled Hermann’s brain, and then Hermann crowds over his shoulder and points at the page. “I started by listing everything I could tell was changed. I thought it might have some significance, but...”

“Holy shit,” Newt says, “they remade Godzilla? _Dude_.” Newt didn’t even think to catch up on pop culture, but he imagines all the science fiction that was too—well— _gauche_ to come out in Their World had no problem coming out Here. He's got a totally untapped decade of a genre to experience.

Hermann snatches the notebook from his hands and flips to the pages in the latter half. Stuff is a lot more...mathy here. Newt’s eyes glaze over. “When I caught on, and remembered enough,” Hermann says, and he smiles a little, “when I remembered _you_ , I wondered if I might be chasing a rabbit of some sort. Not a memory, but more of a dream, or a fantasy I might’ve once had—a normal, kaiju-free life. That we were still hooked up to a kaiju brain somewhere.”

A chill runs down Newt’s spine. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him: he and Hermann, seizing and shaking in the Bone Slums, slowly being absorbed by the kaiju hivemind while they live out boring, average lives in a fantasy world. “Is that possible?”

“It’d be a pretty damned elaborate fantasy,” Hermann says. He shakes his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. We’d _know_ , somehow, I’m certain of it.”

Newt’s not sure, but the alternative is kind of frightening, so he decides to take Hermann’s word for it. “What do you think it is, then?” Newt says.

“Maybe closing the Breach sort of—shattered walls between other worlds,” Hermann says (and Newt pictures the web-like way cracks spread across glass from even the tiniest fracture). “Or drifting with the kaiju brain somehow—” Hermann’s shoulders slump, and he sighs. He'd been getting excited before, but it's all left him. “Oh, Newton, I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

 

Newt manages to talk Hermann into paying for a pizza via room service, mostly by cracking a million and a half jokes about Hermann being a Rich Rocket Scientist, and then follows it up by talking him into renting the aforementioned Godzilla remake (which is around a decade old at this point) from the hotel’s pay-per-view. He was sort of hoping this might devolve into making out, too, but he can understand that Hermann is a little preoccupied, so Newt stays, respectfully, on his half of the hotel bed. Maybe Hermann will make the first move. “The way I see it,” Newt says, around the slice of pizza he crammed into his mouth (Hermann remembered his favorite toppings, how sweet), “this is like a vacation.”

“A vacation?” Hermann says. He’s in a bit of disarray, nothing like Newt’s ever seen before—sweater stripped off, top buttons and cuffs undone, pizza grease at the corner of his mouth and, somehow, smearing the lens of one of his glasses, ink staining his nose, all combining into a very cute look for him—and he’s spent the movie penning new things into his notebook. Probably all about Newt. (Newt updates his own mental list to transfer to his memo pad later: Hermann exists, check, Hermann was-slash-is his lab partner, check, Hermann was-slash-is his undefined something _more_ than lab partner, check, Newt hasn’t cracked after all, double check smiley face.)

“From our world,” Newt clarifies. “Back home, we’ve got all this sci-fi bullshit to worry about. But here?” He takes another piece of pizza and swallows down half of it before continuing. “We’re just two normal, average dudes. No aliens. No giant robots. We should relax. We should go to the _beach_.”

Hermann closes his notebook and sets it down on his chest. He finally seems to notice that Newt doesn't have tattoos, and he stares at his bare arms with a little frown. (I miss 'em too, buddy, Newt thinks.) “The beach?”

“Picture it,” Newt says, outlining an imaginary sprawling shore with his pizza crust. He hasn't been to the beach in years. He  _misses_ it. “No kaiju rising from the deep. No kaiju blue pollution. Just tourists, and surfers, and you and me chilling in tiny swim trunks with piña coladas.” He shrugs and lowers the crust. “Well, maybe some regular pollution. Have you _seen_ the complete lack of progress this world’s made with environmental—”

“Newton,” Hermann says, in his _I’m about to disprove you, you idiot_ voice.

“You don’t have to wear tiny swim trunks,” Newt offers. “Just me. My treat.” He saw a nice little pair in his closet back in his Not Apartment that he thinks might catch Hermann’s eye. Hermann looks like he’s about to jump in again, so Newt quickly adds, “The universe has given us a vacation, Hermann! We should take advantage of it!”

Hermann is not dissuaded. “It can’t _possibly_ be that simple,” he begins. “There are—I don’t know. Bigger ramifications. For the entire universe. Every universe. We can’t just fall through a crack into a new reality and go about like nothing’s wrong.” He sits up a little straighter; Newt, recognizing Hermann's lecture mode, rolls his eyes and pauses the movie. “Where are the Hermann Gottlieb and Newton Geiszler who live here, for example?” Hermann continues. “Are they wandering about in our places in our world?”

This is all very _Star Trek_. Mirrorverse. _Doctor Who_ , too, Newt thinks there was an episode like that. Thirty-odd years of being an avid science fiction fan have prepared him for this, which is why he thinks he’s very blasé about it all. It’ll work out. And even if it doesn’t, it can’t possibly be that bad. He’s got Hermann, which is all he really needs. (All he’s really _ever_ needed. How corny.) “Even if they are,” Newt says, “how much damage could they possibly be doing? Er. Could _we_ possibly be doing. We—us we—already closed the Breach, so it's not like they’re not fucking with my samples or your equations or whatever. They’re probably just filling out paperwork. I say let them.”

Newt hasn’t even thought what it must be like for Other Him in all this, assuming Other Him ended up in his and Hermann's world. (This Him and This Hermann's world.) He entertains, briefly, how confused Other Newt must have been waking up in China with weird tattoos and a lab-full of alien organs. “You know I have a PhD in English here?” Newt says, suddenly remembering, and Hermann ignores him and continues his _theorizing_.

“Consider this,” Hermann says. “If _we_ fell through, what else can fall through? And through other universes? Dimensions?”

“Objection,” Newt says, and boy, is it nice to be back on familiar ground. Arguing with Hermann is the same no matter where they are. “Unsupported data. For all we know, This One and That One are the only two universes out there. Don’t jump to conclusions, Hermann.”

“I was talking about the Anteverse, you daft idiot,” Hermann snaps.

“Oh,” Newt says, and then, because it seems relevant, “I mean, we did kinda blow it up. That was something we definitely did.”

Hermann doesn’t say anything to that, just kind of huffs a little and steals the last piece of pizza, so Newt goes ahead and unpauses the film. They lapse into silence once more. (Hermann grumpy: also familiar territory. It’s calming.)

No vacation, then, but Hermann does reach over and take Newt's hand after five minutes, which cheers him up significantly.


End file.
